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Manchester City Spending Its Way Over the Top

LONDON — Every European summer, there is a club so desperate to spend that it inflates the market price of players. Every selling team hoped last summer to take a call from Real Madrid, and now the big buyer in Manchester City.

The English club, financed by oil money from Abu Dhabi, has just landed the Serbian left back Aleksandar Kolarov. It paid the Roman club Lazio $30 million for Kolarov, roughly 20 times what Lazio invested when it bought Kolarov from OFK Belgrade three seasons ago.

That is inflation with a capital everything.

The fee is double what City paid to Chelsea last year for Wayne Bridge, the England left back. Unless Bridge is sold off to Liverpool, City’s manager, Roberto Mancini, now has what he says he wants — two international players competing for the same shirt.

He has more than he bargained for. Bridge is an adventurous fullback who likes to push forward and create goals with crosses. Kolarov is even more dynamic. He is five years younger, at 24, and has such stupendous power in his left foot that he goes all the way to strike spectacular goals.

They are by no means the only contenders for the left back role. Mancini also has the Spaniard Javier Garrido, the adaptable Englishman Joleon Lescott and his recent purchase from Hamburg, Jérôme Boateng, on the payroll.

Maybe that abundance of riches means the Italian coach can push Kolarov or Bridge into midfield, as a Brazilian-style wingback. It is a possibility. But the coach has multiple options among 12 first-team pool defenders. His midfield is even more overburdened. The recent purchases of David Silva from Valencia and Yaya Touré from Barcelona, each for a transfer fee of $38.5 million, mean that City has 13 men competing for four places in midfield.

He has the new players piled on top of purchases made last year. Every one of them must think he is the rightful first choice in his position. Maybe some of them failed to do the math. Possibly some simply looked at all the zeros on the contract and figured they would never get better offers.

But the turnover is going to be brutal. Mancini will most likely be given until Christmas, the same as his fired predecessor, Mark Hughes, to make the numbers work, or he will be replaced.

The Abu Dhabi royals made money no object when they bought City two summers ago from its previous, fleeting owner, the former prime minister of Thailand, Thaksin Shinawatra. Their ownership was crowned on Day 1 when they signed Brazil’s exotic winger, Robinho, from Real Madrid.

Robinho briefly shone. But when the sun was eclipsed by a typical, gray English winter, he disappeared. He is currently on loan to Santos, back in Brazil, a fabulous talent when motivated, but one now beyond the price most clubs would pay to take on his whims.

Robinho’s returning to City is about as likely as Abu Dhabi’s selling him in the future and getting its initial money back.

It makes sense only if you consider where Manchester City is coming from, and how fast it intends to buy a place among the European elite. The “lesser” club of Manchester, City has now eclipsed its once fabulously wealthy neighbor, Manchester United. City was for decades the more homely, more parochial, in some ways more loved of the two.

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Now, with a former Nike brand manager, Garry Cook, as chief executive and Arabian oil offering near-limitless funding, City can outbid United, player for player. It proved that a year ago when it lured Carlos Tévez, the Argentine striker, from United, erecting a huge blue banner to boast the move.

Money swung the pendulum then. And money did likewise when Silva, Boateng, Touré, and Kolarov chose the sky-blue City club this summer.

Their former clubs, even a world-conquering club like Barcelona, took the money because City was prepared to pay more than the market rate for the merchandise. The players can give you all manner of reasons for joining a club that is not currently qualified for the Champions League and has not won a trophy for 30 years.

Touré has tried all the explanations. He claims he preferred City to United for two reasons: His older brother, Kolo Touré, is a City player; indeed, he is its captain. And he loves the challenge of helping a team that has nothing in the trophy cabinet.

After all, the junior Touré could reason, he has won every medal a player can with Barcelona.

That is true. A big and powerful athlete, not always the first choice at Barça but very handy when its coach, Pep Guardiola, wanted might and muscle at the heart of midfield, Yaya Touré added presence to the best team on earth.

He was also expendable, once the price was right.

And whatever he says about brotherhood and about the challenge of transferring to a team with a virginal longing for silverware, the salary has plenty to do with it.

From a large and once poor family in Ivory Coast, the Tourés both moved for money. Kolo quit Arsenal to join City a year ago, and Yaya smiled the broadest smile last week when journalists asked him if £200,000, or $309,000 — per week
— was the sum of his new deal.

He didn’t say yes, he didn’t say no.

But that reported salary is double what Manchester United can afford to pay most players. United is renegotiating Wayne Rooney’s salary to shut the door on any covetous proposal, but at this moment its highest salaried player is Rio Ferdinand.

His pay is said to be £110,000, or about $170,000, a week, and his Serbian partner in central defense, Nemanja Vidic, has just been upgraded to £90,000 a week to stop him from leaving for Real Madrid.

Meanwhile, City just keeps spending. By the time you read this, it could have acquired James Milner, an English winger from Aston Villa. It could also close a deal on Inter Milan’s powerful, if temperamental, striker Mario Balotelli. And rumors persist that City is one of the potential takers if Liverpool’s American owners, who want to sell the club, decide to cash in on an inflated summer sale of its star striker, Fernando Torres.

Someday there is going to be a fire sale at City. The squad is too big, and the players who have to sit out games on the sidelines will not forever keep quiet just because of the salaries. Mancini will have to offload the disaffected, and very probably at rock-bottom prices.